Ureil followed quietly behind Aron, her hoodie drawn low over her face, a cloak of anonymity that did nothing to hide the nervous flutter in her wings beneath the glamour. There was something hypnotic about the way he moved—fluid, silent, defined not by the weight of his steps but by the inevitability of them.
And of course…
That damn coat.
Long, black, heavy, swaying behind him like a funeral banner.
A second skin. A shadow that never left him.
She remembered asking him about it years ago—why always a coat? Why always the same one? Why hide beneath fabric like he was afraid of being seen? Aron had only stared at her, said nothing, and walked away.
She'd smiled then. She smiled now.
The truth was obvious:
He either forgot the question…
Or simply didn't care.
Knowing him, it could've been both.
And yet… she admired it.
Admired him.
Even stripped of memories over and over, he remained unmistakably, irrevocably Aron.
She was lost in that thought when he suddenly stopped.
His voice, cold and sharp as winter steel, cut through the silence.
"Don't follow me from here."
Ureil froze.
She felt the shift in him—his aura tightening, condensing, becoming a blade pointed at the world.
They had arrived.
The air was different here… warped.
Old.
Thick with dust, blood, and forgotten glory.
In the distance she heard the clang of steel, the crunch of bone, the thunderous cheers of war-hungry throats. A thousand battles replaying eternally.
Valhalla's dumping ground.
A graveyard turned arena.
Where the old gods threw what they no longer needed.
A place even angels preferred to avoid.
Ureil hesitated. She knew her jurisdiction ended the moment Aron entered a domain tied to older powers. Worse powers.
He stepped forward without looking back.
She watched his silhouette melt into the shadows, the coat billowing like a living shadow behind him.
A small part of her wanted to follow anyway—wanted to watch over him.
The rest of her knew she'd only get in the way.
She took a breath.
Time to complete her task.
Aron descended into the underground arena, where the air smelled of blood, sweat, and ancient mead. A roar of voices shook the stone walls. The whole place thrummed with a barbaric rhythm that hadn't changed since the age of axes and sagas.
He activated his scanning abilities, a familiar pulse rippling across his vision.
[87 souls detected.]
"Not bad," he murmured.
'Search for souls bound to Valhalla.'
[All 87 souls are tied to Valhalla.]
"Been busy then…"
He moved deeper, slipping through shadows like he was passing through smoke. The jeers of the crowd grew louder.
"RIP HIM IN HALF!"
"GO FOR THE HEART!"
"HEIMDALL! SPILL HIS ENTRAILS!"
It was the same primal chant that had echoed in this place for centuries.
But he wasn't here for the arena.
He was here for Loki.
'Search for souls bound in servitude to Loki.'
[Error: Odin's Barrier is blocking the search.]
"Shitty old man… just die already."
Odin always layered his domains in archaic barriers—old magic, stubborn and rusty but annoyingly effective.
Aron pushed forward, boots clicking with an increasingly irritated rhythm.
A spectator spotted him in the shadows.
Recognized the coat.
Froze.
"Uhh…hey… I'm gonna call it a night," he whispered to his friend.
"What? You idiot, we bet ten grand—"
But when he saw what his friend saw, his face drained of color.
"Oh… oh shit."
The man stood so fast his chair toppled.
"FUCK—wait, wait for me, you bastard!" he hissed as he stumbled after his friend.
More eyes turned.
More whispers spread.
A ripple of dread followed Aron like a second shadow.
The Slayer walked among them.
None wanted to be near whatever came next.
Aron slipped into the back corridors—where the real business happened. Deals. Trades. Souls bargained and stolen. No audience, no cheering—just the heartbeat of Valhalla's underbelly.
He activated his scan again.
'Search for souls with the highest blessings from Odin.'
[Searching…]
[Three souls found.]
'Locate them.'
His vision sharpened, shifting into a heat-and-essence mode, each soul glowing differently.
One soul burned bright and violent—still fighting in the arena.
Another dimmed with alcohol at the bar, drowning in mead and apathy.
The third—
[Error: Odin's barrier is blocking the search.]
Aron smirked coldly.
"…I already know where you are, cunt."
Odin's blessing had a scent.
A weight.
A smug, stale heaviness like old iron and older arrogance.
Aron followed it upward.
No stairs.
No slow ascent.
He sprinted at the wall, kicked off, vaulted upward—bouncing between vertical surfaces like gravity owed him a favor. His coat snapped behind him. Stone chipped beneath each leap.
He landed on the rooftop with a soft thud.
Waiting for him stood several Valkyries.
Tall, battle-scarred, beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with softness—more like a polished blade. Their hair braided in warrior styles, their coats layered over armor dented by centuries of war.
They drew their weapons the moment they saw him.
Aron didn't even reach for his own.
"Ladies," he said, almost politely, "you have a choice."
But they didn't wait for the rest.
They attacked.
Valkyries never hesitated.
Never faltered.
They were bred for war, and war was what they offered.
Aron sighed.
"…Here we go."
.
.
.
Lesser gods—
Forgotten kings, forgotten warriors, forgotten rulers of forgotten ages.
Once, they held dominion over continents. Entire civilizations bent the knee to them, carved their names into stone, spilled blood in their honor, begged them for rain, victory, fertility, wisdom—anything.
They were powerful once.
Once.
But after the rise of Christ… after the world changed… their faith dwindled like dying embers. Believers vanished. Temples crumbled into dust. Their myths turned into bedtime stories and pop-culture punchlines.
Now they survived only through scraps—thin threads of belief leaking through movies, TV shows, comic books, video games. Mortals invoked their names as jokes, as memes, as nostalgia—never prayers.
Valhalla itself—once the heaven of the valorous, a hall echoing with glory—had rotted into a fighting pit, a brutal machine designed to squeeze every last drop of belief from blood sports and spectacle.
Their gods drifted through the human world like ghosts.
Not ruling. Not guiding.
Just… existing.
Each one quietly wondering:
Why are we still here?
When will the last spark finally die?
Shouldn't we have faded long ago?
But deep down, they all knew why they still existed.
Or rather—because of whom.
At the top of a luxury tower, an old man with one eye sat in the dim glow of his private hall—lined with relics and trophies stolen from ages long forgotten.
He felt it.
A ripple tearing through his magic.
A weight in the air that pressed against his lungs.
A presence he had prayed—yes, prayed—never to feel again.
His single eye widened.
He rose to his feet faster than any mortal his age could dream of, hands trembling.
"…no," he whispered.
Then louder—
"...fuck."
Odin stormed toward the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking one of his modernized "halls"—a neon-drenched fighting pit pretending to be Valhalla—and his jaw clenched so hard the bone cracked.
"Why the fuck is he here?"
He pushed open the balcony doors and stepped into the cold air, muttering words mortals couldn't pronounce without their tongues turning to ash.
Across the city, crows stirred.
Hundreds.
Then thousands.
A rolling storm of feathers, black wings tearing through the sky, converging until they folded into two colossal ravens.
Huginn.
Muninn.
They landed on Odin's shoulders, their talons digging into ancient flesh. Their voices poured into his mind—every sight, every moment they had gathered. Baal's club. The massacre. The broken demons. The trail of carnage.
The more they showed him, the wider Odin's eye became.
"...Baal, you fucking idiot," Odin hissed. "You left this mess on my doorstep? Why? WHY NOW?!"
The ravens continued, their visions spilling through him like poison.
Then—
They showed him Loki.
And Odin froze.
The silence lasted only half a heartbeat.
Then:
"Loki… Loki, Loki—
you… IDIOT!"
His roar cracked the balcony railing.
Centuries of planning.
Centuries of hoarding scraps of belief.
Centuries of manipulation, politics, deals, sacrifices—
all unraveling like rotten thread.
All because that trickster bastard stuck his hands where they never belonged.
Because he got involved with the one being who should have stayed buried in myth.
Odin stepped onto the edge of the balcony.
Huginn and Muninn tightened their grip.
"Fuck. FUCK!" Odin spat. "All my work—centuries of it—ruined. RUINED because that little—"
He didn't finish the thought.
He leapt.
His cloak unfurled, catching old magic. His body twisted mid-air, turning into a gliding silhouette streaking down toward the lower districts.
The ravens screamed with him, their caws slicing through the sky like war horns.
Odin was a god of gods.
A survivor of the old world.
A master strategist.
A manipulator.
A ruler.
But there was one being—just one—
who could turn even him into a panicking, swearing mess.
Because that being was awake again.
And moving.
The Slayer walked the realms once more.
And the world—every realm, every pantheon, every god, demon, creature, monster—
felt the axis shift.
Nothing would be the same.
Ureil hovered high above the city, wings pressed tightly against the cold wind. She remained just outside the thin invisible line marking the Aesir's jurisdiction—an unspoken border angels rarely crossed unless they wanted a diplomatic nightmare.
From her vantage point she watched everything unfold below.
Odin plummeting from his tower like a meteor.
His cloak ripping the air.
His magic boiling the clouds.
And all of it aimed directly at the pits where Aron had entered moments before.
Her fingers tightened around her sword's hilt until her gloves creaked.
Every instinct screamed at her to act—
to dive, to protect, to interfere, anything.
But she couldn't.
She knew better.
Aron never needed help.
Not once.
Not in the countless ages she'd been assigned his silent guardian.
Since the very dawn of his existence her role had always been the same:
To watch. Only to watch.
The one duty Heaven never amended.
The one rule she never broke.
Then—
A ripple of presence bled into the air beside her.
Ureil's blade was out instantly, one wing flaring to stabilize her mid-air, steel aimed directly into what looked like empty space.
"…wait, wait— it's just me," a voice muttered.
Baal materialized at the very tip of her weapon, hands raised high in dramatic surrender. His long dark coat fluttered in the wind, his bruised crimson skin glowed faintly, and atop his head—
A crooked fedora.
A terrible one.
Easily the worst disguise she'd seen this era.
Ureil narrowed her eyes. "Give me one reason not to run my blade through your throat."
Baal smirked, flicking imaginary dust from his jacket.
"Because this airspace is under a non-aggression treaty. Gabriel's rule. Remember? I'd prefer not to explode into confetti today."
Ureil held her stance a full second longer.
Then—reluctantly—she lowered the blade.
Baal exhaled like he'd been holding his breath for a century.
"Good. Fantastic. I bruise easy these days."
She ignored him completely.
The demon snapped his fingers, and a bucket of popcorn materialized.
He leaned forward over the city like a man at a cinema.
"Just here to watch the show before I go," he added casually.
Still no response.
Ureil didn't even glance his way.
"Oh? A shy one today?" he teased.
He tossed a kernel into his mouth—paused—felt the pressure.
The divine aura swelling across the entire district.
Holy and violent.
Old and furious.
His eyes lit up.
"Ohhoho… it's starting."
He grinned wickedly.
"So— who do you think wins? Old-man Odin or the Slayer?"
Ureil didn't bother answering.
Her expression alone said that wasn't a question.
Baal squinted. "I'm serious. Odin's stronger now, you know. He learned to channel the world's violence into himself—feeds on it. Don't underestimate that."
Silence.
Then—
BOOM.
A shockwave splintered across the city.
Cars skidded.
Windows shuddered.
Pedestrians stumbled.
Baal's face lit like a child on Christmas.
"See? Big entrance! The Slayer can't stay Earth's guardian forever. You angels got spoiled. Demons were the ones dealing with him for centuries. Now that we're all locked out, these old gods stepped into our old turf."
Still silence.
Her silence grated on him like sandpaper.
"He's mortal, you know," Baal snapped.
"He bleeds. He breaks."
BOOM.
Another shockwave.
Stronger.
Closer.
People screamed now—
those smart enough to feel danger fled immediately.
Others stared at the rising dust clouds in confusion, unaware of how close they were to death.
"He'll die," Baal muttered, voice tightening.
"Just like Adam died long ago. The Slayer won't last. And when he's gone—"
His grin sharpened, eyes glowing like coals.
"—we return. I return. And I take everything back in Satan's name."
BOOM. BOOM.
By now the entire block was empty.
Utterly evacuated.
Humans fled so fast they dropped bags, shoes, phones—anything that slowed them down.
Streetlights flickered in the abandoned silence.
Only Ureil and Baal remained above, suspended like two ghosts watching a storm swallow the earth.
Ureil finally smiled.
A slow, calm, almost serene smile.
She lifted a finger to her forehead—
a gesture Baal recognized only too late.
"…the block is empty," she said softly.
Baal froze mid-chew.
"…what?
What do you mean?"
Ureil's smile widened into something ancient.
Knowing.
Beautiful.
Terrifying.
She began to laugh.
Soft at first.
Then fuller.
Richer.
Echoing through the sky like silver bells dipped in prophecy.
Baal's skin crawled.
"See for yourself," she whispered.
And suddenly—
the air split open beneath them.
Carnage had a meaning.
Destruction had a meaning.
And buried somewhere within those meanings, Aron had his own—something older, heavier, etched into creation long before language ever found a word for chaos.
A man older than time.
A presence predating heaven, hell, and the very idea of mercy.
What value did titles have for such a thing?
What weight did they carry?
Would the destroyer ever know he was the destroyer?
Of course not.
Wisdom falls upon the desperate.
The fearful cling to it.
The powerful reach for it only when cornered.
Odin understood this intimately.
Aron never needed wisdom.
Never asked for it.
Never wanted it.
He was a weapon—
a weapon of God.
Forged in obedience.
Sharpened in command.
Dropped into existence for one singular purpose.
He had been that weapon then.
He was that weapon now.
A machine of execution wrapped in mortal skin.
And Odin feared the Creator as deeply as he feared the weapon standing in front of him.
The room reeked of ozone and spilled magic.
Aron stood perfectly still, breath heavy, blood sliding down his temple in slow, deliberate streaks. One eye glowed like a dying star. Tattoos burned across his skin in violent pulses—an ancient circuitry waking itself.
Behind him, Loki—shrunk into the illusion of a trembling child—crouched against the wall. His voice was caught between a whimper and a prayer. Too late. Far too late.
"Slayer…" Odin rasped, bones shaking under the weight of his own terror.
Aron didn't turn. "...Odin. Stay back. I need that cunt."
Odin staggered forward despite the warning. "He is my son. Whatever he has done—whatever he has broken—we are sorry. I am sorry."
Loki stared at his father's bent figure.
Confused.
Terrified.
Unable to understand the magnitude of the sin he had committed.
What crime could possibly summon him?
His eyes drifted over the bodies of the Valkyries—proud warriors—now lifeless, strewn like fallen leaves across the cracked floor.
"F–father…?" Loki whispered.
Aron kept his hands in the pockets of his long coat, as if restraining himself by the last threads of patience.
"…I let you all go once. I pitied you."
His voice sank into a lower, colder frequency.
"But I've lost my patience."
He nodded toward Loki's trembling form.
"Ask your child, Odin—where is Eve? If he says what a single time, I will—"
He stopped.
The air froze.
Eve.
Odin felt a sting of dread crawl up his spine—the ravens had already whispered it.
Aron wasn't here for vengeance.
Or punishment.
Or justice.
He was here on a mission.
A mission from the Creator.
And everything pointed to her.
Odin turned stiffly toward Loki.
"Loki… tell the man what he wants."
Loki's voice shrank.
Was he allowed to speak?
Allowed to breathe?
"…I—I don't know wha—"
Aron moved.
A violent twitch—barely a step, but enough to splinter the ground beneath him.
"What?!" Aron roared. "Say what again! Say it again—I dare you. No— I double dare you!"
Loki collapsed inward, hands over his ears.
But the habit slipped out anyway—
"W…what?"
Aron snapped.
"Motherfucker—!"
His fist burst from his pocket like a bullet.
Odin let out a strangled gasp.
He reached into his cloak, pulled a rune-forged dagger glowing with blue godfire—
and aimed it at his own chest.
"Slayer!" he cried, dropping to his knees. "I beg you—he is young. Foolish. Spare your hands. If blood must spill—I offer mine."
He turned sharply, eyes blazing.
"Loki. Breathe. Speak. Slowly."
Loki swallowed, throat bobbing.
He stared at the knife pressed against his father's heart.
"…Eve… she came here," he whispered.
"She stayed with me. For weeks. But she… she vanished afterward…"
Silence.
Aron listened.
Every tremor.
Every heartbeat.
Every whisper of truth or lie.
"Did she say where she was going?"
Loki shook his head—then stopped, remembering the blade.
"…I… I don't know," he admitted.
"But I can help. I can help you find her."
Aron stared into the boy's green eyes.
Loki, the Trickster.
The born liar.
But in the trembling reflection—
Aron saw no lie.
He inhaled… exhaled… slowly.
Letting the rage slide an inch back into its cage.
"…you have her essence," Aron said.
Loki flinched as if struck.
"Yes… she was lonely, so… she left some of her aura with me…"
Aron didn't reply.
He couldn't.
Because the air behind him shifted—
charged—
split—
And an eight-foot giant materialized, crackling with blue lightning.
A hammer raised high.
Eyes wild with fury.
"You shame my family no longer!" Thor bellowed.
The hammer came down toward Aron's skull like the judgment of a dying world—
And Odin screamed:
"NOOOOOOOO!"